Greetings again from Seattle, where the sun has chosen to shine on this Sunday. Nevertheless, I will again try to help darken the sabbath with a selection of new black metal that I hope you will find pleasing. All of this has certainly pleased me.

HAVUKRUUNU

I hadn’t been awake for long this morning when I learned (thank you Conor!) that Naturmacht Productions had revealed the first taste of music from the new album by Finland’s Havukruunu — an album I have been very eagerly awaiting.

The song is brilliant, and so at the last minute I’ve added it to this post in a prominent position. I’m now especially anxious to explore the rest of the album, which it seems I now have in my clutches. Something will have to yield to it today… perhaps food, bathroom breaks, interaction with my spouse… one must establish the correct priorities.Continue reading »

No, this post isn’t about the new Mithras album, though it has been on my mind lately. It’s about a listening experience I had late last night (after possibly drinking too much), when the music fell into place as if it had been ordained by some ingenious higher power. I feel compelled to share it, not only because of how good each piece in the chain is, standing alone, but also because of the interesting ways in which each piece flows into the next and eventually comes back around to join together, the end resonating with the beginning in an unexpected way.

I’ll tell the story of how I came to move from each of these four recordings to the next precisely in the order set out below, because at least to me it makes this playlist even more strange and wondrous. And to be clear, the connections between the recordings aren’t predictable — it’s more like an evolution, progression, and transformation that’s occurring instead of a collection of like-sounding songs — with things becoming increasingly heavy and extreme. By the end, I had bought all four of the releases on Bandcamp.

KINIT HER

This experience began last night when I happened upon a Facebook post by metal writer and musician JR (I haven’t told the people involved in this story that I’m writing about them, so I’ll be using initials instead of full names). In it, he linked to a just-released new album by Kinit Her, calling it “magic”.Continue reading »